This invention relates generally in the field of Medical Obstetrics where practitioners perform amniotomy procedures in which the amniotic membrane is ruptured artificially to make the process of labor more effective, and more particularly provides an instrument for performing the amniotomy procedures which can be worn by the physician and carries means for effectively rupturing the amnotic membrane overcoming problems encountered in effecting the amniotomy procedure.
Amniotomy, the artificial rupturing of the fetal membrane, is a routine practice of laboring patients. Amniotomy is also performed, when ever possible, as an integral part of the care of laboring patients with a plastic stick 10xc2xd inches long, with a small plastic hook at its narrower end. If seen under a magnifying glass, this small hook looks like a small, inverted falcon""s beak. In order to perform an amniotomy with such a plastic stick, the cervix should be in an advanced state of effacement and should also be dilated. When the cervix, a hollow tube of fibrous tissue (whose axis is normally at an angle from that of the vagina), is neither effaced nor dilated, an instrument, such as a plastic stick carrying a hook would likely be useless since the straight, inflexible plastic stick cannot have access to an uneffaced cervix because of the curvature needed to overcome the angle between the intersecting axis of the vagina and the cervix.
The inability to perform an amniotomy in these extremely common circumstances, when the head is already engaged, becomes a frequent cause of frustration. The physician is faced with the alternative of waiting several hours for the cervix to open and efface before the plastic stick the plastic stick can be used to break the amnion. Often the desired dilation and effacement never takes place in spite of many hours of Prostaglandings or labor contractions. The process of labor has a statistically higher chance of success with amniotomy than without it. Not infrequently, a Cesarean sections is done for a dead fetus because all conventional means to deliver vaginally failed and in most of those cases, an amniotomy could not be done because of an uneffaced cervix. Another problem with using the plastic stick is its unpleasant and almost frightening appearance, causing apprehension in the patient when she sees the physician approaching her with a sizable stick to be inserted deep into her vagina.